| Topic: | Re:Re:A young man in a geriatric ward | |
| Posted by: | Tom Pike | |
| Date/Time: | 29/05/07 23:21:00 |
| "...Blair and Brown have failed to provide them with adequate funding, logistics, equipment, air support, helicopters, vechicles and ammunition.Consequently about 150 British service personnel have now died in Iraq and 50 have died in Afghanistan." Consequently? The vast majority of deaths are not a consequence of any equipment shortages, but rather that the troops are in Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place. The question is whether these casualties are for any purpose. It's very difficult to see any in Iraq. In Afghanistan, where the NATO troops have broad support from the people and have a clear role in pushing back (again) the Taliban, there is a reason for their presence, muddied though it may be by the role of opium. "This country has a terrible record of looking after former service personnel - relying on charities like the Royalm British Legion - rather than having a proper state funded government department like the US Veterans Administration." The Veterans Administration exists only because there is no univeral health care in the States. The top US army hospital, Walter Reed, is seen as a national disgrace whose shoddy state forced a rare apology from Bush in March. Undoubtedly there have been failures in ensuring proper treatment for British military casualties, but the US approach is one of the worst models you could choose. Take out an early Keiffer Sutherland film, Article 99, to see probably only a slightly overdramatised version of patient care in a VA hospital. You really wouldn't want this for British troops. |